How Hot Is 104? New York Counts the Miseries

Published: July 23, 2011

CORRECTION APPENDED

It felt like Death Valley as stifling heat reached down on Friday and took the city in its clammy grip, transforming the streets and sidewalks into hot griddles and creating instant dripping wretchedness.

Thermometers reached triple digits, but that was not all -- untreated sewage cascading into the rivers denied water activities to many New Yorkers at the moment they most craved them.

It was the wrong day for that to happen. It was the wrong day for almost anything involving motion. With precious little stir in the air, the temperature shot up to 104 degrees in Central Park at 2:10 p.m., eclipsing the record of 101 for July 22 set in 1957, and falling just 2 degrees shy of the city's hottest day ever. It hit 108 in Newark, the hottest day on record there.

''It's a steam bath,'' Noah Goldstein, 67, said in the morning on a Manhattan street across from his broken-down cab. ''In all my years in New York, I've never seen it get this hot this early.''

With the heat index making it seem like an impossible 112 degrees, this was like the flip side of the two-day blizzard that lashed the East Coast on Christmas weekend, choking the city with snow and tilting life well out of sync. That seemed like a very, very long time ago.

Instead of cantankerous winds, now there was fierce heat from a sun that would not relent. And the foremost place where many people wanted to go -- the water -- was off limits.

Because of a fire on Wednesday that forced the closing of one of the city's biggest sewage treatment plants, the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Harlem, millions of gallons of untreated sewage were discharged from dozens of pipes into the Hudson and Harlem Rivers.

More than 100 workers labored to fix damaged engines in the treatment plant, working in 20-minute shifts because of the broiling heat. Among other things, they borrowed pumps from Ohio to replace those ruined by the fire. By Friday night, untreated sewage was no longer being emptied into the rivers.

Riverbank State Park, atop the sewage plant, was closed Thursday because it lost power. The park was reopened Friday afternoon, but its three pools remained closed.

Water recreation in the rivers was indefinitely discouraged, and pollution alerts were in effect for South, Midland and Cedar Grove Beaches on Staten Island and Sea Gate in Brooklyn.

Would-be kayakers gazed out at the water. Swimmers, unaware of the warnings, pulled their children from the surf when informed and rinsed them off. At Pier 66 in Chelsea, the students of Hudson River Community Sailing were grounded. ''It's definitely inconvenient,'' said Andrew Schmidt, 28, an instructor.

So he improvised. He put together a slip-and-slide out of an old sail. Then he got some hoses and organized a water fight.

Consolidated Edison said power consumption by its customers had reached 13,189 megawatts, the highest level in the city's history, smashing the record set on Aug. 2, 2006. There were scattered power failures, and the utility reduced voltage in parts of all five boroughs and Westchester County, including East Harlem, Flatbush in Brooklyn, Richmond Hill in Queens and the northeast Bronx, to avert more problems in its network. To help out, three wastewater plants were transferred to alternate forms of energy.

The Federal Aviation Administration said there were some flight delays because of thunderstorm activity around Chicago and south of New York.

In addition to keeping cooling centers available, the city converted fire hydrants into temporary drinking fountains and set out pet bowls. It directed that the city's 54 pools be kept open until 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered longer hours at swimming facilities in state parks.

The savage weather cooked the entire East Coast, with temperatures soaring past 100 degrees in Washington, Boston and Philadelphia, among other cities.

There were no reports of serious heat-related injuries or deaths in New York, but city officials advised people to take extra precautions and to go to cooling centers if they had no air-conditioning. Abnormal heat is expected to continue through Sunday.

Still, around the five boroughs, not everyone got the message to stay out of the water, or cared.

On Staten Island, Lou-Ann Capasso, 41, soaked at South Beach with her daughters, Ariel, 4, and Kelci, 2. She said no one had warned her. She adopted an aggressive New York posture. ''The beach has been contaminated for years,'' she said. ''How much worse could it get?''

Others, on advice from lifeguards, avoided the beckoning water. That is what Judith Crespo, 40, did. For her, it was one of those just-my-luck days. She had not been to the beach in years.

Anthony Moutos, 26, still found a way to get wet. ''I'm running back and forth to the sprinklers by the bathroom,'' he said.

At Midland Beach, visitors said no sewage advisories were visible, though the parks department put up about 40 signs by midafternoon. People splashed in the soothing water. A reporter mentioned the issue to Vincent Nelson, 48, and he quickly summoned his daughter, Delilia, 5, from the water and told her to rinse off.

People did what they had to do. They sat through movies they did not really want to see. They walked around without shirts beneath umbrellas. Tony Gonzalez, a Manhattan doorman and restaurant repairman, had taken two showers by midday and planned on taking six or seven. Yana Galbshtein had no air-conditioning at her home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, so she hopped on the subway. She was considering riding it all day.

The blistering heat wave began earlier in the week in the central United States and has been exceptional in its strength and breadth, breaking or tying July high-temperature marks in well over a thousand places. ''One could say, 'Oh, it's summer, it's late July, it's hot,' '' Christopher Vaccaro, a spokesman for the National Weather Service, said. ''But this is different.''

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg addressed the discomfort by suggesting in a radio interview that people turn their thermostats to 79. That might feel warm, he said, but was better than losing electricity.

While people perspired, Jeffrey Watkins, 48, fished -- off Midland Pier on Staten Island -- even though city officials recommended that people not eat anything they caught. While he acknowledged that the heat was punishing, he made the point that it did not even compare with the Carolinas. The logic was not immediately comforting.

Mr. Watkins's friend and fishing partner, Victor Arzano, 24, a telecommunications technician, had taken the day off from work.

''Think about when we had snow over the winter,'' Mr. Arzano noted, emphasizing that you do not have to shovel heat.

Others on Staten Island made concessions to the heat. Bob Villanti, a retired bus driver, did a daily stroll along the boardwalk near Midland Beach. His usual objective is five miles. On Friday, he stopped at roughly three. He said the trick was to visualize. As he walked, he said, he imagined both winter and ''tall glasses of Mojitos with a little extra mint.''

PHOTOS: The heat was brutal Friday in the Brownsville Houses in Brooklyn and throughout New York. (A1); On a street in Bushwick, Brooklyn, umbrellas sprouted on Friday. Hot as New York was, it was cooler than Newark, which had its highest reading ever: 108 degrees. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES); An open hydrant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, gave relief to Louis Diaz. In Bushwick, Ayyan Aly, 11/2, slept in the shade. Because of a fire in a sewage plant, four city beaches were closed. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY BENJAMIN NORMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES) (A16)

Correction: July 30, 2011, Saturday

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: An article last Saturday about the record-breaking heat referred incorrectly to sewage advisories at Midland Beach, on Staten Island. While several beach goers said they did not see any advisories, the parks department put up about 40 signs by midafternoon.